


devotions, in fives

by themorninglark



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon compliant (more or less), Getting Together, M/M, photographer akaashi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-02
Updated: 2017-10-02
Packaged: 2019-01-07 22:44:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12242076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themorninglark/pseuds/themorninglark
Summary: “Shame we didn’t get to talk before now."“I don’t really have anything to talk about, though,” says Kenma.Akaashi, eyes darker yet in the smouldering light, smiles. “I was counting on it.”On kindred spirits finding each other, sharp edges and all.





	devotions, in fives

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has been a long time coming. It has evolved, quite drastically, from its initial incarnation: conscious that I had never written a canon-compliant AkaKen, this started life sometime last year and quickly spiralled out of my control into a self-indulgent epic. But as the manga went on and Kenma and Akaashi's characters continued (still continue) to evolve as well, so, too, did my vision of how this relationship should play out, and what remains has been through a crucible to get to you. Thank you for sailing this tiny ship with me ♥

_Here is a map with your name for a capital,  
_ _here is an arrow to prove a point_

— Richard Siken, “Saying Your Names”

 

_**1.** _

Their first meeting, Kenma remembers, is an apology; one that’s freely and unexpectedly offered, over a half-bow and a frank, appraising sort of look.

“Sorry about Bokuto-san,” are Akaashi Keiji’s first words to him.

Kuroo _had_ warned him about Fukurodani.

Kenma tilts his head upward, just a little. Takes in the sight of the other team’s reserve setter, a short breath, Akaashi’s straightforward gaze, all in the span of a second, then another as his fingers curl round the edge of the bench, press light-knuckled into the sweaty wood.

“It’s fine,” he says. “I’m okay.”

There’s a faint spring breeze tickling his cheek from the windows overhead, a tantalising sliver of the fine day outside. Kenma’s hair is sticking to his face. His palm still stings, an inevitable memento from his first encounter with a Bokuto Kotarou spike. That much, he’d braced himself for; talking with someone new, not so much.

Akaashi does not respond right away. He keeps a polite distance, picks up the end of the towel from round his neck and wipes his brow.

“I’ve never seen a ball fly off the court like that. It hit you pretty hard,” he remarks.

“I know,” Kenma mutters.

Akaashi smiles, a small, sympathetic smile. It comes and goes so quickly, shadows glancing off the corner of his mouth, that Kenma does not know if it was meant for him to see. He sees it, nonetheless.

“It’s my first game setting to Bokuto-san,” Akaashi says, glancing back over his shoulder towards Bokuto, who appears to have run headfirst into the gym doors and is now clutching at his forehead in dramatic fashion. A girl with chestnut-coloured hair shows up to drag him away by the collar. Kuroo’s bent over double, clutching his stomach, laughing so loud that Kenma can hear him from the other side of the court. The third years from both schools are huddled together in another corner. Kenma looks away.

“I made some mistakes. I think… well, I haven’t learned his strength yet,” Akaashi continues unperturbed, as he turns back to Kenma. “I guess it’ll take a while.”

Kenma shifts back on the bench to rest against the wall.

 _Good luck,_ he thinks, and keeps it to himself. Akaashi Keiji will learn to deal, or he will not. Either way, it isn’t really any of Kenma’s business. He’ll find out in the end, for they will, no doubt, meet again.

Akaashi lets their silence trail off into a companionable one. Some of the other players are messing about on the court, hitting serves into bottles and high-fiving each other. Bokuto, doing high knee jumps beside the net and shouting for a serve, appears to be none the worse for wear.

Then the whistle blows, there’s a brisk clapping of hands and an order to _form up_ , and Kenma sighs to standing. Akaashi nods a cordial farewell at him as he jogs back round to the Fukurodani side.

It is Kenma’s turn in the rotation. He steps onto court without a sound, weaves his way like an afterthought in between the ranks of his teammates. From the corner of his eye, he sees Akaashi lean forward to watch, fingers laced in his lap.

Later, Kuroo will ask him for his opinion of Fukurodani’s first-year setter, and Kenma will sift through a smattering of scattered words in his head, try to find a way to say _he could be trouble_ and _he sees too much_ , and _here, this is my hand, it isn’t broken but it might as well be for how much it hurts, and Akaashi noticed._ He will wrap that hand closer round the can of sparkling apple juice that Kuroo tosses to him, know that his lack of a succinct answer does all the talking for him.

“That bad, huh?” says Kuroo, with a look that hovers between a smirk and a grimace.

Kenma offers a noncommittal sort of _mmm_ in response.

His foresight is spot-on, as it turns out: they do meet again, and again, and Akaashi Keiji does learn how to deal.

 

 

_**2.** _

There are several ways to a friendship, or what Kenma counts as one.

The first way, as demonstrated by Kuroo so many years ago, is stubborn, and patient. It is the weathering and the wearing and so many long afternoons, so many early mornings; it is brick on brick and the mortar that binds in between. It is the cracks, too, and they are not faults but part of the whole. They are what they are. Kuroo knows this, too.

Hinata Shouyou does not so much _discover_ the second way as he tumbles headfirst, headlong into it, with everything he has. He does not know any other way to do things. It is sunlight tearing open the sky, the road. Forces of nature, Kenma will learn, are not to be denied, and it is easier to let himself get swept up sometimes, even if it tires him out.

And then there is the third, the way that has been there all along, like breathing.

 

 

_**3.** _

The number _5_ jersey sits a little loose across Kenma’s shoulders, the first time he puts it on. He pushes his hair out of his eyes with reluctance, looks at himself in the locker room mirror, and straightens, blinks to watch the picture dissolve and resolve; _now_ , it fits, or at least looks like it does.

He squares his shoulders, sighs. He does not know that this jersey makes him part of the team, yet, or maybe ever. It’s not like a uniform makes him a high school volleyball regular, just like that. It’s not a _magical girl transformation sequence._ If only things were that easy.

The only soundtrack to this cutscene is his own quickening heartbeat, the voices from the corridor, and the end of it is when he goes to warm up, sees, on the other side of the courts, that Akaashi is wearing the same number.

(Coincidences mean nothing: a stitch, then another, too small to see; he is strangely comforted, anyway.)

In another time, Kenma tells Akaashi that he was there. That he had watched Fukurodani’s semi-final from the stands, after Nekoma lost theirs. He sees the twitch to Akaashi’s eyebrows, the way they knit together just a little, and there’s a dry smile on Akaashi’s face as he says, _not my best game_.

Kenma does not point out that it was his first official high school match. Excuses are not in Akaashi’s exacting vocabulary, least of all towards himself. But neither is harshness in judgement, and they leave it there, for what it's worth. There’s always the game that lies ahead, waiting, waiting.

In this time, they are on opposite sides of a mirror and it is not Kenma’s style to break things in haste.

 

 

_**4.** _

“Kozume.”

The setting sun paints that mellow voice into a burnished shadow, warm like cracked, dusky caramel around the edges. At the sound of the pause, Kenma looks up.

 _Kozume_ , syllables drawn out in Akaashi’s mouth like a long, lazy secret, the kind that had nowhere to go and could be all the more indulgent for it. _Kozume_ , like hearing his own name for the first time, shorn of all its honorific trappings and niceties. He decides he likes it better when it’s said like this.

It is the first word Akaashi had said to him, off the courts, here at this training camp. It is their last day. Behind them, the dining hall is a high-spirited cacophony of chatter, camaraderie, and the occasional breakout of bad spontaneous karaoke.

“Shame we didn’t get to talk before now,” says Akaashi.

He sits down next to Kenma, back to the sprawling sycamore. It’s a warm enough evening, and Akaashi isn’t wearing his jacket. His arms are bare, covered with fresh scrapes and bruises, but it’s only skin deep, already fading.

They have worked hard, Kenma knows, and Akaashi is tougher than he used to be. Kenma wonders if he is tougher than he used to be. He has not really thought about it.

He murmurs a _hello_ , tucks his phone into his jacket and his hands around his knees, hugging them close to his chest as he props his head up. Akaashi looks up at the sky, clear and cloudless and brilliant.

“I don’t really have anything to talk about, though,” says Kenma.

Akaashi, eyes darker yet in the smouldering light, smiles. “I was counting on it.”

He breathes in like it is the first real breath of fresh air he’s managed to steal in the past few days, and exhales, content, a sigh of relief.

They are like mayflies out here, and their time is coming to a rapid close. On the periphery of the high school, like _this_ , with all their matches behind them and the season dying, the horizon beckons a different shade of red, a skyline of low roofs and winged shapes that take flight. A hundred and one thoughts breeze through Kenma’s head, like a flurry of summer moths, a whirlwind fluttering by that splashes colour across the neatly ordered canvas of his mind. He does not try to catch them. He lets them slip through his fingers, and he thinks, maybe Akaashi already knows them all. Across the net, they have had entire conversations that speak louder than words.

So Kenma says nothing. He presses his palms to his lap, lets the day recede into fresh memory.

_Next time, next time—_

The air crackles, electric, as the street lights down the road blink on one by one in the darkening evening. Akaashi stirs, gets to his feet.

“We’d better get back before people come looking for us,” he remarks. “Konoha-san can be terribly nosy.”

He holds a hand out to Kenma. Kenma, after a moment’s hesitation, takes it and stands up.

 

 

_**5.** _

_I have a list—_

It’s nearly 2 AM, and Kenma is hiding under his covers with his PSP when his phone lights up in the dark with a notification. He sets down his game, reaches to skim the text.

Akaashi’s still typing, but the first half of the sentence is so awfully _him_. Of course Akaashi has a list. Of course Akaashi is the sort of person to thrive on lists.

_I have a list of places in Tokyo I’d like to photograph. Nerima is one._

_why?_  
_theres nothing here  
_ _you like photography?_

If Akaashi is surprised to receive an immediate response at this hour, he does not show it.

 _Yes.  
_ _Perhaps I am interested in the nothing._

From anyone else, it would sound cryptic; from Akaashi, Kenma thinks, it probably means exactly what it sounds like, and so he does not bother to question this penchant for the prosaic. He meets Akaashi on an afternoon just after the rain. The pavement outside the train station is strewn with petals, drifting on the surface of so many still puddles.

It takes him a moment to figure out what Akaashi is staring at.

“Oh,” he says, when he does, and raises a hand to lower the hood on his jacket.

It is not like Akaashi to say anything as obvious, as banal as _you dyed your hair_ in the name of small talk. It is not like Akaashi, either, to be indecisive about his opinions, and so Kenma is pleased when he says, “It suits you. You look good. When—?”

“Not long ago. I… wasn’t really thinking.”

Akaashi’s eyebrows shoot up. “You? Not thinking?”

Kenma opens his mouth again, starts to tell the story: _Tora said—_ , but he can’t find a way to put it all together and settles instead for, “I just wanted a change, I guess.”

“It’s okay, you know,” Akaashi says, a faint smile finding its way to his lips. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me.”

As they leave the station, Kenma finds his feet leading the way towards the local game store, the comic shop down the road, and they pass by the _combini_ where the team stops for popsicles and takeout after practice, the path winding beside the river where they run. He lingers here a moment in the shade, and Akaashi takes his time to frame his shots. He is not slow, merely deliberate.

Kenma hugs his jacket round himself as the wind picks up, leaves quiet whispers fading like their footsteps. The traffic on the bridge above them is lazy, leisurely at this hour. It is the time just before evening falls, a held breath, suspended in a pinking sky. A prelude, a postscript. Both and neither, depending on which way you faced. A familiar tableau.

“Once, last year,” Kenma murmurs, soft enough that it’s to himself more than anything else, just loud enough for Akaashi to hear, “I wanted to quit. And I was tired of everything, and I was here with Kuro, and he told me not to quit.”

Akaashi’s silent for a while. Kenma doesn’t turn to look at him. He keeps his gaze on the water, on the toes of his sneakers, grass-stained with what remains of the rain on the riverbank. He knows Akaashi is listening, for the clicking has stopped.

“Would you be startled, Kozume,” Akaashi says, “if I told you the thought of becoming Fukurodani’s next captain freaks me out, sometimes?”

Kenma doesn’t have to think long about it. He shakes his head. “No.”

Akaashi glances over at him. “No?”

“No,” Kenma repeats.

“Most people are. They say things like, _but Akaashi-kun, you always seem so calm and collected, you have everything under control_ … well, but you’re not most people, are you.”

It’s not a question. Kenma looks up.

“Just because you seem calm doesn’t mean you don’t have feelings,” he says.

Akaashi nods. “Exactly.”

 

 

_**6.** _

(

 

The photographs are parentheses. They are an opening, an empty street corner, a leaf on the wind, the silhouetted backs of two girls in _sailorfuku_ walking hand-in-hand down the road; they are a closure, a setting sun in the shadow of the bridge, a splash of rain by the gutter that’s nearly evaporated. Kenma has heard it said that a picture speaks a thousand words. Akaashi’s, by that token, should speak ten thousand at least. But they are not words. They are the _possibility_ of words, the bracketed embrace, the pause on half-parted lips and the kind of _nothing_ that simmers for more, more.

 

)

 

 

_**7.** _

The cold snap’s set in by the time Spring High Tokyo representative playoffs come and go. Winter has never been Kenma’s favourite season, but he prefers it marginally to summer; the bracing cold doesn’t leave him quite as lethargic as the heat, the long nights feel like cosy companionship, and there is comfort to be had in hot chocolate, even if it’s the cheap, watery kind that comes dispensed from the stadium cafeteria’s machine into a paper cup.

After everything’s over, Akaashi hangs back, as Kenma had known, somehow, he would.

They’ve both changed, their numbers off their backs; face to face without a net in between them, Kenma is plain out of congratulations to give, and he thinks Akaashi is not here for apologies, kindnesses, or second-hand niceties either. It’s not a truce, for they were never at war; it is not by accident that they had found all the ways to get under each other’s skins, and it is not by accident now that they find each other.

Their handshake is pressed into Kenma’s palm, all of the spaces between them drawn tight.

“I’m glad we got to meet again,” Akaashi starts, without preamble. “I didn’t get a chance to say that, just now, before you had to run for your next match. I wanted to tell you.”

“We’re meeting again now,” says Kenma, though he knows full well what Akaashi means, and Akaashi’s smile is wry.

“I guess we are,” he acknowledges.

The space in the corridor seems awfully wide and awfully close at the same time.

There are things Kenma cannot help noticing, has been noticing all along, with those keen eyes of his; like the way Akaashi stands with his back straight, weight pressing evenly into his heels, his taped-up fingers and his habit of fiddling with them when he’s thinking about something. And so it goes, this incidental catalogue that Kenma’s been building up in his mind: height, average for a volleyball player (that is, notably taller than Kenma); build, slender leaning to well-muscled in the legs; manner, disarmingly open. His shoes are cleaned to meticulous detail, down to the laces. They are a few years old at least, from the patterns of their wear and tear. It is clear nonetheless to see they have been well cared for with a thoughtful hand.

These are all his first impressions of Akaashi Keiji, come home to settle and make a full picture, one that continues to shift, to _evolve_ , as they both have.

“I’m glad you didn’t quit, Kozume,” Akaashi says, at last.

He offers no elaboration, no adornment, and it’s enough. Kenma sees the twist in his wrist, the delicate grip of his fingers tightening round his knuckles, his constant gaze, and beneath, the hearth-like flicker of sparking ashes.

 

 

_**8.** _

Summer in Saitama is another camp, and this year, Kenma stays an extra evening. It’s a _captain_ thing, he tells Lev, who asks too many questions. Fukunaga gives him a knowing nod as he helps herd Lev up the Nekoma bus, and Kenma makes him a silent promise of an entire bunch of fresh bananas when he gets back.

Akaashi takes him to breakfast the next day and walks him out to the station. It’s a gentle slope all the way up, a picturesque hill they’ve spent the last few days getting to know far too well over practice runs and penalty laps to the end of the road, racing to the top of the steps and down again. It is halfway up these steps of stone and dew that Akaashi stops now, his back turned.

“By the way, Kozume.”

His next words are as calm and deliberate as ever, but there’s a set to his shoulders and the smallest of tremors to his voice, like a breath wound around his pinky finger, a thread that thrums in the still air and stretches to find Kenma across their paces.

“You know, don’t you?”

Kenma takes a moment, picking his answer carefully.

“It’s not like you to beat around the bush, Akaashi,” he says, and Akaashi laughs, a low, raw sound like his throat’s still scratchy in the morning.

“No. You’re right. Well, the thing is, I like you. A lot.”

“Yeah,” Kenma murmurs.

He’d known, of course. He does not know when he had _started_ knowing. He does not think it matters so much, after all, and it occurs to him that Akaashi, considerate as always, has turned his back in this instant to spare them both the sentimentality, this strange cracking open of a mirrored glass-heart surface that, to anyone else, might have looked like ice.

This is what draws them together: the knowledge that they are not ice.

“I’ve spent my whole life making lists. To make sense of things around me,” Akaashi says. He pivots round on his heel, comes to face Kenma at last. His expression hasn’t changed. He could be talking of the weather, of the tea they had shared just a while ago, from the same cup. “I have a list for everyone. Bokuto-san’s weaknesses. Konoha-san’s skills. Signs that Shirofuku-san is hungry. Even people I don’t know so well, like Kuroo-san.”

“What’s your list for Kuro?” Kenma asks.

“Kuroo-san’s provocations," says Akaashi, without hesitation, and Kenma doesn’t bother hiding his amusement. Akaashi’s lips twitch at the corners. He continues.

“But for you, Kozume, I don’t have a list. And I never had to make one, because you’ve always made sense to me. It’s like, with you…”

“…I don’t have to try so hard,” Kenma finishes, tilting his chin boldly upward to meet Akaashi’s gaze.

“Or try at all, sometimes.” Akaashi adds.

He comes down the stairs.

 

 

_**9.** _

_are we dating, now_

It is in a text, halfway home, that Kenma first asks this question; he asks it again in person the next time they meet, without words. He asks it in the touch of their foreheads, the press of his fingers into Akaashi’s shoulder, and Akaashi makes his intentions clear in every way that Kenma needs.

This is their game, off the courts where the spotlights cannot find them. These are rules they have drawn up. Tea stains and coffee rings on napkins, ripples in puddles, skirting around each other to come together again.

_i’ll still do my best to beat you the next time we meet, you know_

_And I’ll look forward to it._

 

 

**_10._ **

_Midnight—_

In mid-June, the hydrangeas bloom, here in Hakusan Shrine. Kenma has seen them, verdant blooms of lavender and violet and the palest white on a sultry afternoon. It is a place for growth, a place for new beginnings.

Today, snow is falling.

It is no uncommon sight, but it has been a while since the last New Year’s Eve snowfall, and there are so many children everywhere that Kenma’s getting tired just watching them run about, tongues sticking out for a snowflake.

Kuroo, home for the holidays, is wearing a different jacket now, one with his university’s name emblazoned proud on the back and he stands taller, feels older still. He’s still Kuroo, but Kenma’s reminded again that while one year flies by fast enough for many things to feel the same, it’s also long enough for a litany of littler things to add up, for subtler shifts that are no less significant.

Once a year, this is their tradition. Once a year, Kenma puts aside his overriding instinct to roll his eyes at Kuroo’s weird fixation on ritual, and sends up a prayer. At his throat, his scarf flutters, crimson red.

He’s never really known what to wish for. The gods, he thinks, have better things to concern themselves with than his unremarkable life, and he is more than okay with that.

This year, as he closes his eyes, one of those moth-like thoughts from another summer stays, lingers sweetly. It soars and settles like a whisper on the echo of those bells. Resonant, they ring out across the courtyard, the sea of people.

He is just here to blend into the crowd. He never wanted to be noticed. Still, he thinks, maybe it’s okay to be himself sometimes, prickly sharp-shard edges in his bones and all.

_I’ll look forward to it._

Kenma bows his head and claps his hands together. _Me too._

He opens his eyes. As they step away, Kuroo looks at him with a knowing grin.

“Did you wish for a new game again?”

Kenma stops just short of returning a smile. This, he keeps for himself and one other.

“Something like that,” he says, and listens to the last bell as the New Year dawns.

**Author's Note:**

> (This is the story of [why Kenma dyes his hair](http://haikyuu.wikia.com/wiki/Story_of_the_Pudding-Head), if you are curious.)


End file.
